Dr. John E Worth

Florida's lower gulf coast was a key region in the early European exploration of North America, with an extraordinary number of first-time interactions between Spaniards and Florida's indigenous cultures. Discovering Florida compiles all the major writings of Spanish explorers in the area between 1513 and 1566.
Including transcriptions of the original Spanish documents as well as English translations, this volume presents--in their own words--the experiences and reactions of Spaniards who came to Florida with Juan Ponce de León, Pánfilo de Narváez, Hernando de Soto, and Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. These accounts, which have never before appeared together in print, provide an astonishing glimpse into a world of indigenous cultures that did not survive colonization. With introductions to the primary sources, extensive notes, and a historical overview of Spanish exploration in the region, this book offers an unprecedented firsthand view of La Florida in the earliest stages of European conquest.

This substantial two-volume work, incorporating the most current archaeological and historical investigation, studies the assimilation and eventual destruction of the indigenous Timucuan societies of interior Spanish Florida near St. Augustine, shedding new light on the nature and function of La Florida's entire mission system.
Beginning in volume I with analysis of the late prehistoric chiefdoms, John Worth traces the effects of European exploration and colonization in the late 1500s and describes the expansion of the mission frontier before 1630. As a framework for understanding the Timucuan rebellion of 1654 and its pacification, he explores the internal political and economic structure of the colonial system.
In volume II, he shows that after the geographic and political restructuring of the Timucua mission province, the interior of Florida became a populated chain of way-stations along the royal road between St. Augustine and the Apalachee province. Finally, he describes rampant demographic collapse in the missions, followed by English sponsored raids, setting a stage for their final years in Florida during the mid-1700s.
The culmination of nearly a decade of original research, these books incorporate many previously unknown or little-used Spanish documentary sources. As an analysis of both the Timucuan chiefdoms and their integration into the colonial system, they offer important discussion of the colonial experience for indigenous groups across the nation and the rest of the Americas.

This substantial two-volume work, incorporating the most current archaeological and historical investigation, studies the assimilation and eventual destruction of the indigenous Timucuan societies of interior Spanish Florida near St. Augustine, shedding new light on the nature and function of La Florida's entire mission system.
Beginning in volume I with analysis of the late prehistoric chiefdoms, John Worth traces the effects of European exploration and colonization in the late 1500s and describes the expansion of the mission frontier before 1630. As a framework for understanding the Timucuan rebellion of 1654 and its pacification, he explores the internal political and economic structure of the colonial system.
In volume II, he shows that after the geographic and political restructuring of the Timucua mission province, the interior of Florida became a populated chain of way-stations along the royal road between St. Augustine and the Apalachee province. Finally, he describes rampant demographic collapse in the missions, followed by English sponsored raids, setting a stage for their final years in Florida during the mid-1700s.
The culmination of nearly a decade of original research, these books incorporate many previously unknown or little-used Spanish documentary sources. As an analysis of both the Timucuan chiefdoms and their integration into the colonial system, they offer important discussion of the colonial experience for indigenous groups across the nation and the rest of the Americas.

The De Soto expedition was the first major encounter of Europeans with North American Indians in the eastern half of the United States. De Soto and his army of over 600 men, including 200 cavalry, spent four years traveling through what is now Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. For anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians the surviving De Soto chronicles are valued for the unique ethnological information they contain. These documents, available here in a two volume set, are the only detailed eyewitness records of the most advanced native civilization in North America- the Mississippian culture- a culture that vanished in the wake of European contact.

1993 Choice Outstanding Academic Book, sponsored by Choice Magazine.

This volume examines the late 17th-century transformation and retreat of the Spanish mission provinces of Guale and Mocama in the face of English-sponsored hostility from the north. The central focus of the text is the presentation of English translations of the recently identified 1739 package of historical documentation assembled by the Governor of Florida Don Manuel de Montiano in an attempt to demonstrate Spain's prior ownership of the new English colony of Georgia. This package comprises a rich variety of original and transcribed documents dating to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, including gubernatorial orders, legal proceedings and investigations, internal Franciscan documentation, royal decrees, and a detailed census and visitation record for Guale and Mocama. Based on these documents, supplemented by extensive new historical research, an in-depth introductory overview provides a detailed and somewhat revised portrait of the retreat of Guale and Mocama between 1655 and 1685. Although the aggregation and relocation of aboriginal settlements to the south and toward the sea ultimately failed to halt the onslaught of slave-raiders and pirates, chiefly lineages remained largely intact throughout this period, attesting to the remarkable persistence and adaptability of Guale and Mocama culture.